ANDREW CRANE: Mandatory home sprinklers would hurt economy

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The Enterprise, Brockton, MA

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Posted Aug. 20, 2014 at 5:06 PM
Updated Aug 20, 2014 at 5:27 PM

Posted Aug. 20, 2014 at 5:06 PM
Updated Aug 20, 2014 at 5:27 PM

» Social News

The letter from Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts President John Grant (“Fire sprinklers save lives,” Aug. 7) is misleading. The multi-family building in the tragic Lowell fire he cites was already covered by existing sprinkler laws.

Mr. Grant would like to see mandatory sprinklers in new one- and two-family homes, a choice any prospective homeowner is now free to make. Most don’t install them because of cost and because nearly 90 percent of fire fatalities in one- and two-family homes occur because of a lack of working smoke alarms.

Mandating sprinklers will increase the already high cost of building a typical home in Massachusetts by about $14,000. This will force more young families, already fleeing the state in droves over housing prices, to seek residence elsewhere.

Such a proposal would rob our economy of the labor necessary to sustain and grow our still tenuous recovery.